'When a writer is born into a family," the poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote, "the family is finished." I was reminded of this quote after seeing Running with Scissors, the film adaptation of Augusten Burroughs's best-selling memoir of his dysfunctional 1970s childhood. The film and the book depict him growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother so drunk on delusions of literary glory that she gives him away to a manipulative psychiatrist called Dr Finch and his bizarre family.

On its publication the book was lauded for its humour, but seeing it adapted for the screen what is most striking is Burroughs's cruelty in his portrayal of the Finch family and his parents, particularly his mother who is derided for daring to dream she could be a published writer. "Gratitude doesn't even begin to describe it," writes Burroughs in his acknowledgments at the end of 300 pages of mockery and self-mythologising, and gratitude certainly was not the word cited in the $2m lawsuit members of his family have brought, claiming libel and invasion of privacy and that Burroughs had fictionalised the family to make them seem more shocking to try to sell more books.

Burroughs is not the only writer who has been accused of distorting the truth, but the emergence of misery memoirs as a literary subgenre raises the question of how much responsibility authors have when they are writing about their families. Should they only be true to their art or must they also be sympathetic to those about whom they are writing and who might not ever have wished to be rendered into literature?

When Claire Bloom revealed intimate details of her failed marriage to Philip Roth in her memoir, Leaving a Doll's House, Roth responded in kind. In I Married a Communist, he created a character obviously based on Bloom, depicted as a self-loathing, social-climbing, anti-semitic Jew who destroys the reputation of her former husband by publishing her memoirs. Roth had the means to defend himself but most do not. At its heart this is then an issue of power. If history is written by the winners, so are memoirs. For all the hardships detailed, the implied boast from their authors is: I am a winner because not only did I get over my troubled childhood but I also got to write about it all. But if there is a power in this ability to immortalise one particular version of the truth, then perhaps with this power ought to come some responsibility.

Having spent the past few years working on my own memoir I have had to confront these questions of rights and responsibilities. In writing about my childhood I was, in effect, selling the story of my and my family's life; the challenge was to write with unfailing honesty without feeling as if I was selling them out. I was not writing a misery memoir, but I would necessarily be revealing details about my family. We were raised in a community that believes what goes on in the family stays in the family. Once I had an early proof copy, I passed it to them to ensure they knew what I'd written. They were largely happy but suggested amendments I agreed to make.

Was my willingness an artistic betrayal? Was I being less true to my art? I would suggest not. I wanted my book to be affectionate in tone, and had I not offered my family the chance to comment I would, like Burroughs, have been abusing my power as the writer. Perhaps Graham Greene was right when he claimed that there was a splinter of ice in the heart of every writer; but for those who choose to write about their loved ones, a sliver of generosity might also be welcome.

· Greetings From Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock 'n' Roll will be published by Bloomsbury in June www.sarfrazmanzoor.co.uk